Crew member calls trust in captain ‘oblivious innocence’

PORTSMOUTH, Va. — It was only when Claudene Christian showed her a map in the middle of the night, just hours after the Bounty had left port, that Jessica Hewitt realized how big the storm was that they were sailing toward.

“She’s like, ‘This thing’s huge!’” Hewitt recalled.

The Bounty left New London, Conn., bound for St. Petersburg, Fla., on Oct. 26, and Hewitt joked they’d have to go to England to avoid hurricane Sandy.

She told a U.S. Coast Guard hearing Tuesday into the Bounty’s sinking that the storm should have raised a red flag for her, “but you really trust who you are working for.”

Hewitt, then 25, said Walbridge had a lot more experience than she did.

“Oblivious innocence, I would call it,” she said of her belief at the time.

Hewitt didn’t even know there was a hurricane brewing until she got a text from her mother at noon the day the Bounty left Connecticut, but it didn’t concern her at the time.

“My mom was a mom, she’s a worrier.”

Hewitt, a graduate of the Maine Maritime Academy, joined the Bounty as a deckhand last Aug. 28 and had worked on other ships.

She said she felt “very comfortable” as Capt. Robin Walbridge explained his experience before they left port but he said anyone could leave the ship without others thinking less of them. No one left.

Hewitt thought it odd when some friends texted her with their prayers.

“I thought it was a little over the top,” she said, admitting she didn’t realize the intensity of the storm at the time.

That only became clear when Christian brought her maps at about midnight, hours after they had set sail.

Christian wanted to learn as much as she could about sailing, Hewitt said, so she had asked for maps and details of hurricane Sandy, then showed Hewitt a map depicting the storm and the coast.

On Tuesday, Hewitt frequently fought tears, at times unsuccessfully, as she recounted the moments she spent with Christian, and the Bounty’s sinking.

Christian, 42, and Walbridge, 63, were the only crew members among the 16 on board not to survive.

In the ship’s final hours, as they worked below deck, Hewitt turned to fellow deckhand Drew Salapatek and said, “ ‘If the ship goes down, don’t lose me,’ and he said, ‘I won’t.’”

She said she was proud of the crew’s professionalism in the face of horrendous conditions as they at first worked to save the Bounty, then prepared to abandon it.

By the time she had her immersion suit on and was on deck in the early morning darkness of Oct. 29, she was so exhausted, she fell asleep. She looked over at Walbridge against the navigation shack as she drifted off. Her last thought was concern that his hearing aids were not waterproof.